The Wisdom Of The Dreidel: Comfort in an Impossible World

The Wisdom Of The Dreidel: Comfort in an Impossible World

Can a simple top, a delightful toy for children, really speak to me
in the aftermath of tragedy? In the aftermath of a Har Nof?

Although some might suggest otherwise, questioning how a mere toy
could possibly carry the weight of such an event, I believe the dreidel
can in fact afford insight into how to wrestle with such difficult and
seemingly unfathomable events. In doing so, it offers a hint to why I am
so enamored with my ever-growing dreidel collection; a collection I
began almost thirteen years ago when I met my beloved wife.

I remember that moment so clearly. It was the second night of Chanukah.
Yes, it was a miracle for me to have met my dear Clary. A Chanukah
miracle. But even that remembrance begets a Chanukah question. In my
heart, the dreidel came to symbolize that wonderful meeting and yet,
wouldn’t a single grandiose dreidel have been enough to commemorate that
life-transforming moment?

Why did I feel moved – some might suggest compelled – to
continue to amass dreidel after dreidel, growing my collection to nearly
a thousand dreidels from the United States, Israel, Spain, Hungary,
India, Russia, Scotland, Brazil… indeed from all over the world. So many
wondrous tops! So many that anyone who comes into the room where I keep
my many volumes of books will find themselves transported by the sight
of them.

No single dreidel for me. Rather, hundreds of them – made from a broad array of materials, in all sizes and colors.

It is a rare visitor to our home who doesn’t view my collection and then
– smile fading from his or her face – ask, “Rabbi Safran, of all the
things in the world to collect, why dreidels?”

Lest you think my collection is simply whimsy, an opportunity to recall
the delightful evenings of childhood when the joy of Chanukah filled my
household, let me share with you my response.

“What,” I ask, “does the dreidel teach us? What is its message?”

So much of Chanukah is presented in a way to delight young children. The dreidel and gelt. The sufganiyot.
The games and songs commemorating the miracle of a small, dedicated
army of fighters overcoming fierce oppression and rededicating our
sanctuary.

And let us not forget the miracle of the oil!

But the story and challenge of Chanukah – and its ultimate miracle – is
far beyond a child’s simple story. Likewise, all the elements of that
story are more powerful and commanding than how they are often portrayed
in the telling. Indeed, the “toy” dreidel represents not simplicity but
the complexity and hidden nature of history and miracles.

Just as the dreidel spins and lands with only one side up, history and
experience also show us only some of reality. The four sides of the
dreidel teach that we are never truly seeing the whole story and that
there is always another side that remains hidden to us.

When we begin to grasp the deep truth of the dreidel, we come to
understand that with so much beyond our understanding, we have to have
faith in hidden miracles and in God. We cannot comprehend the meaning of
Har Nof just as we cannot understand the countless other events that
mark our long history.

So we return to the dreidel. Four panels. A nun, a pei or shin, a gimmel, and a hei.
Four letters, representing the message of Chanukah – “A great miracle
happened here/there.” As it spins and falls, showing one letter, it
necessarily hides another. What is plain to us is only what we see. We
too often fail to find comfort or meaning in what is hidden to us.

When the dreidel falls on the hei we go on playing the game, never considering that on the other side of the dreidle is the nun – neis for “miracle.” We see the “there was” but we are blind to the miracle. A gimmel – “great” – hides the pei/shin, the “here” or “there.”

We spin on and on and on, missing so many of God’s messages to us. Why?
Because we see only that which is plain to us, failing to look deeper in
order to find that which is less obvious or hidden. However, our
blindness does not mean that what is on the other side of the dreidel is
not an equally important part of the reality we perceive.

Bayamim hahem – in days of yore. What is vital is not what was
but whether what was has everlasting value to us. Many of the holidays
listed in Megillat Ta’anit are not celebrated because they fail this simple test. They have meaning only in their own time, in the past.

Chanukah – with its silly little dreidel – continues to be celebrated
because its message and its power continue to speak to us today. Ba’zeman hazeh.

Bridging the near-insurmountable distance between hayamim hahem to ba’zeman hazeh is the mystical gift of our survival – physical, spiritual and religious. The bridge that carries us from the hei of the dreidle to the neis is the same gift that allowed the congregation of Har Nof to celebrate a bris the very day after the unspeakable events there.

A great miracle is happening here.

In Days of Deliverance, Rav Soloveitchik notes that Chanukah
has a universal appeal; it is “…a holiday of political victories, a
holiday of the smashing of political might. Matityahu and his sons had
the strength and the courage to confront the Syrian-Greek legions, to
liberate the city of Jerusalem and its Temple, and to re-establish an
independent Jewish kingdom. This history of dramatic bravery appeals to
all, Jew and non-Jew, especially when the revolutionaries compose a
small group, unorganized and poorly armed, yet unafraid of declaring war
on a mighty enemy.”

However, having said that, he asks the deeper question: “Is Chanukah
merely a holiday telling us a heroic story of battles won and political
victories gained, like the American Fourth of July, or the French
Fourteenth of July? A political event, even one of the greatest
importance, can be celebrated only as long as the people view it as a
turning point in history, the beginning of a new epoch in independence….
However, a political victory loses its meaning when the people later
lose their independence and the victory ends in a downfall.

“If Chanukah had been simply a holiday of political freedom, its whole
meaning would have evaporated with the destruction of the Temple and the
exile of the Jewish people. Chanukah’s fate would have been exactly
like that of all the other holidays of the Second Temple era which were
enumerated in Megillat Ta’anit…”

As is clearly pointed out in the Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 19b), “One was forbidden [to fast] on those days named in Megillat Ta’anit
when the Temple was in existence, because they were days of gladness at
that time. Once the Temple was no longer in existence, one was
permitted [to fast] because they are days of mourning to them.”

That being the case, asks the Rav, “Where is the logic in celebrating
Chanukah during thousands of years of exile, martyrdom, ghettos,
pogroms, and suffering? How small and worthless do the Maccabees’
victories seem when compared to the cruel political downfalls that we
have suffered?”

Matityahu and his sons did not start a revolt due to political pressure.
They, along with the rest of the people, accepted their political
suffering. It was due to the Greeks’ hatred for our spiritual essence,
our difference – our Torah. It was the same hatred Haman felt
when he complained, “Their laws are different from those of every
people.” It is the same hatred we felt during the Holocaust and, indeed,
during the most recent expression of that hatred, Har Nof.

It was easy to understand the statement by the director of the Zaka
rescue and recovery organization likening the scene he witnessed in Har
Nof to pictures from the Holocaust.

The comparison rings true, not just in the images but on a deeper level. How did we celebrate a bris the day after the tragedy of Har Nof? How did we rebuild the Jewish nation after the Holocaust?

How can we comprehend such a rebirth? Just as the toppled dreidel is
picked up to spin again, so too do we go on. The day after the tragedy
at Har Nof there was davening, there was learning, there was
celebration. Our DNA is defined by renewal. No one can stop us. We are
God’s nation. He is Eternal. So then are we.

When we are massacred in shul we return the next day to pray and to celebrate a baby boy’s bris. When the gates of Auschwitz slammed shut, the gates of Haifa opened.

Chanukah is not about Matityahu’s military victory. That did not last. What did last to this very day is
the purification and renewal of Jewish life. Difficult to grasp? Seems
senseless? Walk the length and breadth of Israel and see for yourself.

In another essay, Rav Soloveitchik expresses similar thoughts:

“One can see that which is revealed, but not that which is concealed.
The Kabbalists speak about the antithesis between the hidden world and
the revealed world. These terms express the idea that most things that
humans can sense are only the last phase in a long evolutionary process
that unfolded quietly, far from the perception of the human eye, which
can discern only things that are ripe and complete.”

The Rav points out that the Hasmoneans fought not against an imperial power but for the
purity of the Jewish soul, in their own time and forever. They fought
and won to show that the people can be reborn and renewed. That is the miracle.

When the dreidel shows a gimmel it is good to remember that on the other, unseen, side is the nun.There,
sometimes hidden, untold miracles abound. We are all dreidels. We keep
spinning. That’s why I continue to acquire more dreidels – the miracles
of our eternal existence never cease to create renewed amazement.

May we always seek the hidden and find the miraculous of the Eternal even when we are confronted by the pain of the temporal.

About the Author:Rabbi Dr. Eliyahu Safran is an educator, author and lecturer. He can be reached at e1948s@aol.com.

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About Me

I write this blog to voice an opinion of a : non-PC, non-politically affiliated, pro meritocracy, TNSTAAFL, believer in NO man, that is sick and tired of the Arab / Muslim taqiyya campaign of lies and fabrication, who is striving for observance and Aliyah.